


Matrices

by alec



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (2010), Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Awkwardness, M/M, Modern Era, i don't know what to tag with yet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-10
Updated: 2014-01-10
Packaged: 2018-01-08 04:14:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1128235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alec/pseuds/alec
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Though if Hiccup had to be completely honest, he wasn’t here for the lecture. Something something boring matrices; right, like that was going to pull him out of bed. Such riveting stuff. No, the only reason that Hiccup was here at this ungodly hour and willing to put up with the droning from the professor was for the guy he sat next to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Matrices

It’s nine thirty in the morning, and Hiccup can’t believe that he actually managed to drag himself out of bed in time to make it to the least interesting class he had ever taken. There had been a strong snowfall since the night before; his roommate was sleeping through his morning classes; math was Hiccup’s least favourite subject: all signs pointed that Hic should have just stayed in bed and slept through the lecture. Scanning around the tiered lecture hall, it looks like at least half of his peers had chosen to do just that.

Though if Hiccup had to be completely honest, he wasn’t here for the lecture. Something something boring matrices; right, like that was going to pull him out of bed. Such riveting stuff. No, the only reason that Hiccup was here at this ungodly hour and willing to put up with the droning from the professor was for the guy he sat next to.

Being his sophomore year, Hiccup had adjusted to life at university and was becoming increasingly skilled at putting forward exactly enough to get by with decent grades, while not letting the professors know he was doing minimal work. This course — Introduction to Matrices and Linear Algebra, MATH some number — is the last math course that he would have to take. So Hiccup wasn’t terribly excited so much as ready for the course to begin that first Monday of the semester. It was looking to be a boring one, nothing interesting. Then the seat in front of him was occupied, and the course got a lot more complicated.

This far north, it snowed almost every day during the winter, and that first Monday morning, it was falling reasonably well; there’d likely be snowball fights outside the union later that day. So when the boy who had decided to sit in front of Hiccup took off his jacket, snow fell off the coat and all over Hiccup’s notebook and backpack.

“Hey!” was all that Hiccup had the energy and desire to say. It wasn’t really the guy’s fault, but it was too early in the morning (this is a reoccurring theme for himself, if he had to admit it) to feel forgiving.

“Oh crap, sorry,” the boy said as he turned around and surveyed the snow melting all over Hiccup’s desk.

Truth told, Hiccup hadn’t cared too much about the notebook, but when the boy’s blue eyes turned themselves to look at him, Hiccup found he didn’t even remember he had a notebook. The boy had a perfectly angular face, beautifully thin lips, eyes that seemed to radiate at least two shades of blue, and white hair that seemed to be the most stylish bedhead Hiccup had ever seen. _Oh my god, he’s attractive. Shitshitshit._

“Uh, it’s— don’t worry about it, man.”

Instead of responding, the boy just stared at Hiccup for a second longer, before glancing to the side and back quickly, grinning slightly, and replying “Sorry.” The sound of chalk on the board at the front prompted the white-haired boy to turn around and sit.

The lecture began (“…and here is the grading scale: 97% and higher is an A+, 93-96% A…”), but only about a third of what was said left any meaning with Hiccup; he couldn’t stop staring at the back of the boy’s head. He honestly tried to pay attention, but his thoughts kept returning to the lips and eyes of this boy he hadn’t known existed for longer than twenty minutes now.

When the lecture was finally over (after what felt like two hours of Hiccup swimming in his own mind), he made an effort to put his materials away as precisely as possible, timing his exit for right when the boy was also leaving. As they were walking towards the door, the two intersected, and Hiccup was suddenly worried he wasn’t going to have any courage to say something, when the boy looked sideways towards Hiccup.

“Sorry again about the notebook.”

“Oh, uh, no, it’s, it’s fine. It dried up.” _Wow, way to go. Class A effort you’re putting in here, Hic._

“My name’s Jack.”

“I’m, uh, Hic. I mean, Hiccup. Yeah, I know; my parents really shouldn’t have been allowed to name me.” _Holy hell, shutupshutupshutup._

“Well, it’s nice to meet you Hiccup. Which way are you going?”

By this point, the train of student exodus had reached the hallway, and Hiccup gestured to the right.

“Well, I’m off this way,” Jack said as he motioned his head to the left. “I’ll see you later, then.”

Hiccup wanted to say that it was fine, that he could take the long way to class and go to the left, but he had already done enough damage, so he forced the most convincing smile he could and the two parted ways.

The rest of the day was equal parts messy and distracting.

* * *

Wednesday came, and Hiccup arrived at the lecture hall decidedly earlier than was necessary. Sitting in the chair, doing his best to wait in as cool a way as possible, Hiccup passed a good seven minutes before he saw the rather evocative white hair show up in the doorframe. Pretending not to look, Hiccup was all the same suddenly nervous when Jack walked down the row towards Hiccup, setting his things down in the seat to Hiccup’s right.

“Morning,” Jack let out as he swung the backpack from his shoulders.

“Hey there.”

Jack sat down, sprawling out his legs as he did so. Unlike Hiccup, it seemed that coolness wasn’t something Jack needed to intentionally strive for.

“So, what are you? I mean, what’s your major?” Hiccup managed to sputter out, before deciding to keep his mouth closed and let Jack lead the conversation ( _oh please, let him lead the conversation please_ ).

“I’m still deciding for sure, but I’m mostly set on education. What about yourself?”

“Oh, I’m anthropology.”

“Anthropology? I haven’t met anyone yet who’s doing that.”

“Yeah; it’s kind of foolish, but I really liked the idea of exploring the world when I was younger, and I guess there’s a part of me that still wants to become this amazing adventurer slash archaeologist and explore the world.”

Jack laughed a little and smiled. It looked to Hiccup like Jack was about to say something, but the professor demanded attention and the lecture began.

* * *

The following three weeks had passed in similar fashion, with the two talking a little before and after the lecture. The conversations became less forced and more genuine, and Hiccup found himself relaxing a bit more each time, though seeing Jack walking toward him each morning (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday were easily Hiccup’s favourite days of the week now) caused him those brief moments of nervousness.

But this particular morning, Hiccup would have stayed in bed. The snow was piled up outside, half the class was missing, and the professor himself was late to the class (“Excuse the delay; traffic was horrendous getting here…”). Then the professor went right into the lecture, with Jack still absent, and Hiccup wanted to yell out in protest, that no, this wasn’t fair, give me those two minutes, wait for Jack to get here.

The lecture had been underway for probably ten minutes when finally, a snow covered Jack shuffled down the aisle, spilling snow on a couple of girls as he scooted in front of them. Sitting down next to Hiccup as nonchalantly as possible, he whispered out a “Hey” and Hiccup realized he had been almost a little nervous that Jack hadn’t shown up, which felt increasingly stupider by the millisecond.

“Hey. So, you missed him going on about multiplication, nothing too big, I have my notes here,” Hiccup whispered back as Jack opened his notebook on the tiny desk.

It wasn’t as fulfilling a conversation as Hiccup would have wanted, but it worked, and Jack was here at least. Jack copied over Hiccup’s notes quickly, and the next thirty minutes of the seventy five minute lecture progressed like every other lecture before it.

Once forty minutes had elapsed though, the professor finished up the example he was working on, looked out over the lecture hall, and in a rare moment of professorial gaiety, announced: “And that’s all I’m going to cover today; I don’t want to punish the students who couldn’t make it to class _too_ badly. Thank you for showing up in spite of the snow; I’ll reward you by not boring you too much more with this. Stay warm, and I’ll see you next Monday.”

As the class erupted into the noise of students talking and packing away their things, Jack laughed before moving.

“Naturally the day I’m late is when he decides to let us out early. Why’d I bother even coming.”

Before he could catch himself, Hiccup blurted out “Oh, because you wanted to see my smiling face.”

Jack laughed and shoved his notebook back into his backpack. “Well, I don’t have class for at least another hour. Want to grab something to eat? I didn’t get a chance to eat this morning.”  
  
“Sure. Class was cancelled for me, so my day is wide open.”

Together, the two shuffled their way from the lecture hall to the campus dining hall, which was decidedly more crowded than one would have expected given the low turnout to class. Evidently, the need to eat and socialize was a much greater pull than was matrix multiplication.

While Hiccup was off getting a waffle, Jack procured an omelette, a full plate of eggs and bacon, and an orange. Hiccup watched with morbid fascination as the white-haired boy managed to down all of the food, and then stare almost longingly at Hiccup’s half-eaten waffle before Hiccup just pushed the food toward the skinny boy in a scientific endeavor to see if Jack could actually eat three breakfasts. Turns out he can.

With the food all consumed (by some loophole in the digestive system), the two sat in their high stools, drinking coffee for Jack and hot chocolate for Hiccup, and laughing about the class, then the students they saw passing them by (“…is she actually carrying a pillow? My god she isn’t even _trying_ …”), and finally, talking about each other. The conversation, which started off feeling forced, began to feel more natural, and Hiccup felt himself relaxing for the second time in the day already. The nervousness that accompanied being around Jack still remained, but Hiccup felt less and less like an imposter every time they laughed, until finally, it felt like he and Jack were talking like old friends. And here, with the snow falling just outside the window they were sitting next to (Jack seemed to be perfectly fine with the cold air radiating off of it, somehow), nursing their drinks and laughing and talking, it felt so _right_.

They both knew it was going to happen eventually, but finally Jack pulled his things together. “I’ve got to get to my next class, Hic,” he said sadly.

“Ahh, yeah, you’re right. You’ve got to get across campus in the next five minutes.”

“Yeah, I’m probably going to be late.”

Jack flashed a grin towards Hiccup as he stood up, zipping up his jacket, standing at the end of the small, round table.

“Thanks for suggesting this, Jack. I really enjoyed it,” Hiccup said, still sitting down on the high chair.

Jack smiled this time, making eye contact with Hiccup. And then he was leaning over the small distance between the two, and Jack lips were pressed to Hiccup’s left cheek, and Hiccup could feel Jack smiling against his face as his cheeks burned the hottest they ever had. After a moment, Jack pulled away a few centimeters.

“Me too,” he whispered, before standing straight again, grabbing his backpack, and rushing off to his next lecture, leaving a blushing Hiccup sitting alone next to the snowy window pane, with his hand pressing against his cheek.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been stuck in writer's block for what feels like ages, and it feels so good to finally write something.


End file.
